Lunik IX

Imagine being forcibly relocated to a deprived and cramped estate where you share your room with 15 others. Your local school is caged, jail-like behind steel bars. Donated sheet metal forms its walls; windowless passageways connect its classrooms. Lunik IX on the outskirts of Kosice, eastern Slovakia. The largest Roma ghetto in central Europe, Lunik IX was thrown together in 1981 as a solution to the municipality's problem with the homeless, tenants unable to pay rent and persons deemed “unable to adapt socially.” But behind the steel bars of its kindergarten, something stirs that carves through the air of the ghetto's notoriety. This school is an oasis for a chosen few within the virtually post-apocalyptic wasteland. Some of the city's most artistically gifted children come from this kindergarten and the fruits of their crafts line the walls of the interior. Through the children’s eyes, 'Lunik IX' is a journey into their vivid, shimmering refuge.